Tangled Webs Part 2 -- conscious and unconscious

 An update to my last blog: Granddaughter and I did hear from the guy in the UK, the guy who matched to daughter's DNA. The nephew of the man who, well, blew my life apart in so many ways 45-43 years ago. At first the nephew responded quite positively about the match but once he heard what the connection was, how close it was, he pulled back slightly and said that he needed to consult with "the other members" of the family to see who had known what--he hadn't known anything about a first cousin--and to talk with them about his contacting us. Side note: this man is 43 years old, married with his own daughter. So, not a very young person but not an older person of, say, my generation either.

I wrote last time that I had come to terms with it all and, consciously, as I move around my day, get things done, read, interact, yeah, the whole thing is something at the back of my mind. Except when I am speaking with daughter or granddaughter.  Then it moves to the fore and I try very hard to be clinical, analytical, say I've moved on and so forth. But the nephew's last message to us, sent on Monday, stirred up feelings and memories of being told the very same thing by my daughter's father, "I have to think about how to tell my family....", 43 years ago when he was holding out hope to me that we'd be able to go back to England and be part of a family--something I dearly wanted as I wasn't happy in Canada, felt so alone as the ultimate single parent in my upper middle class neighborhood where even other "single" parents had exes who were involved with their kids. Ultimately though he had the upper hand, and whether he himself had any regrets, suffered any remorse, well, I won't know unless he chooses to respond once the nephew tells him what he's discovered.

Still, unlike 43 years ago when after he left to go back to England, having smashed my hopes with a "you're on your own" goodbye, and I was so devastated that my very kind boss gave me a week's "compassionate leave" to pull myself back together again, well, I'm coping. It's only when I go to sleep that the dreams come, nightmares really. So on Wednesday morning, when I was attending midweek services at my Episcopal Church I knew I needed to speak, face to face, to a neutral "someone". I met with my minister after services and she listened carefully. She didn't treat me like a victim, a "poor you", which was very good. She listened and then asked me what it was that I thought was bothering me. And I said I felt, once again, powerless. Waiting, again, for a person/people to decide whether to acknowledge me/us. 

Together we worked out the three possible scenarios if/when the nephew gets back to us (he said he'd be "in touch soon"): 1) Really glad to know there’s a family in Arizona, let’s keep in touch, and he provides some updates on all of the family. 2) A more reserved response, like, let’s keep in touch but some members of the family really don’t want to know so it will be a partial keep in touch and 3) total rejection a kind of “family’s discussed this and we’d really rather not continue this. Goodbye and good luck." And (3) is the one I have already been crying over but, as my minister said, what’s really changed in my life since last Wednesday? Where have "I" lost anything. Still, for my daughter, it's worse. She said she felt, once she knew that the nephew didn't know about her, like she was his "dirty little secret". With the emphasis on dirty. I ache for her and I tried, her friends have tried, to tell her that that is HIS cross to bear, not hers. 

HE is the one who had to keep the secret all of these years. And that is hard. I know all of the books I've read, the most recent being "Lessons in Chemistry" which is absolutely wonderful, all the TV shows I've watched about an out-of-wedlock child just popping up from nowhere, it's a common enough theme. Still, when you're in the midst of it, it's hard and the most difficult part is not being able, at least right now, to heal those wounds that we probably all have suffered. I'm trying very hard not to judge him by the last time I saw him. Just as I am not the same person I was back then, he may well not be either.

I just know that I will be very glad when I know which scenario is going to play out of those I outlined with my minister. It's beyond time to move on again.